1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for editing multimedia content, and more particularly, to systems and methods for editing multimedia content, including on demand, web-services based editing of multimedia content over a distributed system connected by a network providing media as a service (MaaS).
2. Description of the Relevant Art
It is generally known in the art to provide video editing systems and methods having a server computer and remote user terminals wherein content stored on the server computer is edited via the remote user terminals, based on inputs from users active thereon. It is also generally known in the art to manage, edit, and create digital content such as text, email, music, video, digital images, and combinations thereof from remote terminals through a network, such as the Internet, to a server computer. While the speed and bandwidth of data communication over the Internet has increased over time, large content items, such as streaming video, animation, and full-length movies require higher download and upload times than other digital content. It is also known to provide video editing systems that provide for multiple remote users to access the same content from a server computer and content database via a network, such as the Internet; version management systems and methods are also known.
By way of example of relevant art documents:
US Patent Application Publication No. 20100014826 for Video editing system, video editing server, and communication terminal published on Jan. 21, 2010; describes a video editing platform and server that allows multiple terminals to connect to the server to edit the same file at the same time, including editing on the server without loading the terminals, wherein the terminals transmit commands from a predetermined set to the server, which are then processed by the server to effect editing of a video file.
US Patent Application Publication No. 20090150947 for Online search, storage, manipulation and delivery of video content published on Jun. 11, 2009; describes a system that includes a central hub for management of user's video content, allowing users to add, delete, view, categorize, search, send, receive, edit, and comment on stored video content.
US Patent Application Publication No. 20020116716 for Online video editor published on Aug. 22, 2002; discloses methods running on a server operating on a network having a client/server architecture to allow a client control over a video editor program running on the server, including a video editing program running on a server, allowing users to choose media available on the server or upload media to the server and allowing users to control the video editor program to create a video file using a real time control panel view (from a remote terminal user interface).
Examples of other relevant documents relating directly to metadata management and tracking may include:
US Patent Application Pub. No. 20060149781 for Techniques for relating arbitrary metadata to media files, describes a system comprising: a relater that relates media data to different segments of a media file, and an interpreter that returns different objects containing a specified segment based on a search query containing metadata for the segment.U.S. Pat. No. 6,539,163 for Non-linear editing system and method employing reference clips in edit sequences, describes a method of constructing a sequence in which metadata of a child sequence is stored and a reference clip linking it to the child sequence is added to the parent sequence, wherein the metadata for the child sequence is loaded into memory during playback.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,668,869 for Media access system; it describes a video indexing program which describes extracting metadata from each short clip and associating the metadata with the respective short clip, and further describes creating an edit decision list (EDL) and storing the metadata for the short clips in a computer searchable database.
US Patent Application Pub. No. 20050193016 for Generation of a media content database by correlating repeating media content in media streams, which describes matching of repetitive media segments in different streams and storing the corresponding metadata in a database.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,401,097 for System and method for creating compilations of content, describes the compilation of audio, video etc. through a web-based user interface; the metadata is stored hierarchically in a database and includes search support.